redirection

A common problem we run into is the unique identification of resources. This is a very broad statement because it represents a very broad problem. We have identification schemes for all kinds of things: people have names, web pages have URLs, books have ISBN numbers, etc. For the USGIN system to work smoothly, we need an identification scheme for resources that are part of the network. In USGIN we use Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs) which follow a specific format. For more information about the format, and for more background, see this post on lab.usgin.org.

Once we have this identification scheme built, it is important that the URIs can be dereferenced, or in other words that they are resolvable. We would like a user to be able to put the URI of a particular feature into the address bar of their web browser, push enter, and be presented with some sort of representation of their resource of interest. This is the niche that our Django-based redirection engine it trying to fill.